Lighter Music at the Proms

[Ein Heldenleben]

Alpie can move us on when the serious business starts



Probably not the most appropriate of term, but OED might cut me a bit of slack with 'to unfold', or even 'To be transformed from one form into another by a process of gradual modification, esp. from a more rudimentary to a more highly organized condition.' Especially, not exclusively. My Latin made me use it rather too literally: I should have used 'revolution'!

I think the point I really wanted to make was that 'quality' isn't necessarily the most appropriate metric, however you define it. I would rather hear a string quintet by Michael Haydn (who has been represented in only three Proms, as far as I can see) than any work by Gershwin (featured in 54 events) or Rodgers (featured in 24). Or is 'quality' something a work has or doesn't have, and M. Haydn has 'quality' too' (but not very much)?



It all comes down to: What are the Proms for? What is the Glastonbury Festival for (and should it move round the country, for that matter ?)? My view of what has happened is that the BBC has now pigeonholed classical music as 'niche'. And in business terms it doesn't warrant the amount of airtime or money spent on it. Hence 'reasons' are found to somehow include any sort of music that can be claimed to have 'quality' in the Proms and on Radio 3. And the new areas have the added advantage of being widely popular, bringing in the crowds and the money. No more than that.

I would not wish to compare the works of Michael Haydn with those of Gershwin as , although I know quite a bit about the latter I do not know enough about the former . It is very difficult , perhaps impossible , to compare works in such radically different genres but I think I would be quite prepared to say that the string quartets of Joseph Haydn are of higher “quality “ than say the overtly “classical” works of Gershwin like the Piano concerto or the tone poems Rhapsody in Blue and American in Paris - at least according to my aesthetic criteria . They show a higher degree of technical skill, they are more “original” ( they’re the first in a genre Haydn invented! ) and they surprise almost at every turn. I don’t think I would want to point a finger at the Proms for the lack of any of the Haydn’s chamber works because ( despite the recent Cadogan innovation) it generally an orchestra based music festival .

I agree the Proms should not be mimicking Glastonbury. Sadly classical music is niche - just compare classical streams and sales with that of rock and pop - I would be suprised if classical is more than 5 per cent of the total. If anything the BBC’s coverage is disproportionately large relative to the presence and importance of classical music in contemporary culture . Just on a stopwatch basis R3 broadcasts very much more classical music now than it did in the 80’s when transmissions stopped at midnight - to say nothing of the catch-up service which means that at any one time there is 30 times more classical music available than there was over a 24 hour period than in the 70’s or 80’s .

Outside Radio 3 for some reason quite challenging contemporary visual art, dance and theatre finds a pretty large young (indeed all age ) audience whereas classical music lags behind. The art galleries in London (pre-lockdown ) were packed ; Ditto sold out Ballet Rambert and Shakespeare perfs in the provincial city where I live - but orchestral music is struggling.

[Alison]

Good debate. I value your contributions very much Helden. I’d be happy to see G&S and Strauss family having outings at the Proms.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Good debate. I value your contributions very much Helden. I’d be happy to see G&S and Strauss family having outings at the Proms.

Thanks very much . Yes me : too particularly the Strauss’s who are woefully under represented given their excellence and , though I’m not a huge G and S fan they are greatly to be preferred to some of the finer fruits of contemporary pop culture . But then the latter isn’t aimed at me!

[french frank]

I would not wish to compare the works of Michael Haydn with those of Gershwin

I only mentioned the M Haydn quintets as I happened to have just listened to one: his major output was symphonic. I deliberately chose him as being typical of a 'minor' composer (for good reason, some would say!) who had big orchestral works performed at the Proms in 1899, 1925 and 2006 (the latter work given the catalogue no K.444 as having a contribution from 'a contemporary').

I think this is where the true divide is as far as the Proms go. Do the Proms directors decide that a Gershwin musical or selections from the musical 'greats' trumps a work by a 'minor' figure like Havergal Brian (featured in nine Proms)?

Even so, I think the logic would be to stage a complete musical at the Proms, as occasionally a complete opera has been staged, and as opera companies occasionally do now. 'The Golden Age of Broadway'-type concert has become a regular feature which is more akin to an Evening at the Music Hall (or, dare I say, An Evening with Michael Ball (2007)?.

Outside Radio 3 for some reason quite challenging contemporary visual art, dance and theatre finds a pretty large young (indeed all age ) audience whereas classical music lags behind.

The difference between art forms which are 'of their own time', where classical music is the music of the past?

[Ein Heldenleben]

I only mentioned the M Haydn quintets as I happened to have just listened to one: his major output was symphonic. I deliberately chose him as being typical of a 'minor' composer (for good reason, some would say!) who had big orchestral works performed at the Proms in 1899, 1925 and 2006 (the latter work given the catalogue no K.444 as having a contribution from 'a contemporary').

I think this is where the true divide is as far as the Proms go. Do the Proms directors decide that a Gershwin musical or selections from the musical 'greats' trumps a work by a 'minor' figure like Havergal Brian (featured in nine Proms)?

Even so, I think the logic would be to stage a complete musical at the Proms, as occasionally a complete opera has been staged, and as opera companies occasionally do now. 'The Golden Age of Broadway'-type concert has become a regular feature which is more akin to an Evening at the Music Hall (or, dare I say, An Evening with Michael Ball (2007)?.



The difference between art forms which are 'of their own time', where classical music is the music of the past?

Yes I agree I would prefer both a complete Broadway musical to a pot-pourri and a Havergal Brian symphony to both ! There are so many neglected British symphonists yet the Great American Songbook is pretty much overplayed .If the Proms is about anything it is about great classical music and classical music we might consider “great” were there an opportunity for it to be broadcast to a large audience. Apart from anything else living composers need the exposure and the performance fees . I think the Gershwin and Rodgers estates are ticking along nicely…

On your final point it’s almost impossible to define classical music . But the packed galleries I refer to were not just Tate Modern but the impressionist and Italian Renaissance galleries at the National (strangely not many takers for the Dutch) . The Shakespeare performances were RSC Measure for Measure and Macbeth (completely silent and attentive provincial schools/OAP matinée) and the Ballet Rambert a 1 hour 15 contemporary ballet set entirely to a score drawn from Lutoslawski - largely watched by teenage girls and their mums . There is an audience for contemporary and timeless “classical “ art but you have to know how to market it and using the word “classical” isn’t the way.

[french frank]

Yes I agree I would prefer both a complete Broadway musical to a pot-pourri and a Havergal Brian symphony to both ! There are so many neglected British symphonists yet the Great American Songbook is pretty much overplayed .If the Proms is about anything it is about great classical music and classical music we might consider “great” were there an opportunity for it to be broadcast to a large audience. Apart from anything else living composers need the exposure and the performance fees . I think the Gershwin and Rodgers estates are ticking along nicely…

Good to end a discussion with complete agreement!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Good to end a discussion with complete agreement!

Apologies for the late afterthought !

[Cockney Sparrow]

If the Proms is about anything it is about great classical music.........
......On your final point it’s almost impossible to define classical music .

As I see it (am I wrong?) there is a proportion of Proms that are "surrendered" to other genres - to the cross marketing, wider BBC "objectives" to justify the expense/capitalise on the "BBC Proms" brand, whatever. (I'm not fit to judge whether the selection of music and standard of performance are as high as they achieve for Classical Music). I take your point about musicals - I'm not strongly averse or attracted and probably wouldn't go, but might watch / listen which I certainly wouldn't for much of the "other genres".

In my mind, the question is whether the mission of the non-surrendered Classical Music proms are being reduced - I don't have the stats. Or whether the purpose as stated by you (and as taken by most(?) of us here of "Great Classical Music" is being subverted, diluted etc. Not sure - perhaps a pandemic Prom season isn't the one to give a basis for judgement.

Does French Frank (as in, for example, post #22 above) suspect any of the same, I wonder?

[Ein Heldenleben]

As I see it (am I wrong?) there is a proportion of Proms that are "surrendered" to other genres - to the cross marketing, wider BBC "objectives" to justify the expense/capitalise on the "BBC Proms" brand, whatever. (I'm not fit to judge whether the selection of music and standard of performance are as high as they achieve for Classical Music). I take your point about musicals - I'm not strongly averse or attracted and probably wouldn't go, but might watch / listen which I certainly wouldn't for much of the "other genres".

In my mind, the question is whether the mission of the non-surrendered Classical Music proms are being reduced - I don't have the stats. Or whether the purpose as stated by you (and as taken by most(?) of us here of "Great Classical Music" is being subverted, diluted etc. Not sure - perhaps a pandemic Prom season isn't the one to give a basis for judgement.

Does French Frank (as in, for example, post #22 above) suspect any of the same, I wonder?

On a pedantic note : I suspect are many more Proms (in a normal year that is ) than there were in the 70’s , 80’s and 90’s (e.g. late night proms and Cadogan Hall) . I reckon the total amount of classical music has never been higher but the relative proportion of classical music has fallen since then. I think in a normal year there are almost too many concerts.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Lighter Music at the Proms

I've moved this general discussion away from the Concerts sub-forum.

[french frank]

Thank you!

[french frank]

Apologies for the late afterthought !

Well, that does it - I don't agree with you any more

The thing is that I can't get too worked up about this. I see it as one of many organic changes: some I feel sad about, some happy, some indifferent. I do feel sad that the Proms, the "greatest festival of classical music", isn't 100% classical music. "It never was", some will reply. No, but it could be and I wish that was the way it was moving, rather in the other direction. That is my musical taste, nothing more.

What I think is interesting, philosophically, is whether the (American) musicals will come to be perceived as the greatest contribution to 'classical music' of the 20th century. Or perhaps film music. Or jazz. And will composers like Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies &c. be seen as 20th-c. musical footnotes, like Michael Haydn? Lucky to get a look in?

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, that does it - I don't agree with you any more

The thing is that I can't get too worked up about this. I see it as one of many organic changes: some I feel sad about, some happy, some indifferent. I do feel sad that the Proms, the "greatest festival of classical music", isn't 100% classical music. "It never was", some will reply. No, but it could be and I wish that was the way it was moving, rather in the other direction. That is my musical taste, nothing more.

What I think is interesting, philosophically, is whether the (American) musicals will come to be perceived as the greatest contribution to 'classical music' of the 20th century. Or perhaps film music. Or jazz. And will composers like Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies &c. be seen as 20th-c. musical footnotes, like Michael Haydn? Lucky to get a look in?

That's hard to say, isn't it - if not impossible. I think subjectively, how music is "consumed" plays the largest part in determining which of the various genres were around in the C20 had the greater or greatest influence on the whole. When I first heard Shostakovitch 1 at age 13 my immediate receptivity was down to it sounding "like film music", whereas one later learned the reality to have been the other way around, as no music like that was being composed for films in 1924! Notwithstanding Kurt Weill's comment about the Musical being America's greatest contribution to music there have not been many composers who have been influenced in terms of form or style. One thinks of Bernstein, but modernism has tended to source Musical tropes to satirical ends, qv Malcolm Williamson or Frank Zappa. Jazz influenced composers such as Lambert, Walton, Milhaud, Honegger, Hindemith, Weill himself and Stravinsky, but mainly in relatively superficial terms of rhythms, dress and instrumental combinations as opposed to practice - the improvisational imperative arising in consequence of questioning the logic of total control in post-serial and experimental musics.

In a way it would be nice to think atonality and serialism had had the biggest impacts on C20 classical music, but it would possibly be more accurate to say atonality was more important in freeing harmony of it's narrative-carrying burden, and being the final, the dominant-and-tonic final arbiter of when a piece had come to an end, while at the same time awakening whole areas of form and expression unavailable to diatonic ways of thinking and feeling. What serialism did achieve after Schoenberg was its own expansion beyond the harmonic-melodic sphere into considerations of proportionality within and between constituent elements defining music which might not otherwise have been thought of relevance, but as at least one composer has said, you first needed to be predisposed to its way of thinking to effectively apply it to composition.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Well, that does it - I don't agree with you any more

The thing is that I can't get too worked up about this. I see it as one of many organic changes: some I feel sad about, some happy, some indifferent. I do feel sad that the Proms, the "greatest festival of classical music", isn't 100% classical music. "It never was", some will reply. No, but it could be and I wish that was the way it was moving, rather in the other direction. That is my musical taste, nothing more.

What I think is interesting, philosophically, is whether the (American) musicals will come to be perceived as the greatest contribution to 'classical music' of the 20th century. Or perhaps film music. Or jazz. And will composers like Birtwistle, Maxwell Davies &c. be seen as 20th-c. musical footnotes, like Michael Haydn? Lucky to get a look in?

I don’t think Broadway musicals , jazz or film music will be considered the “greatest contribution to classical music in the 20th century” - I’m not even sure that most of those genres are classical music or whether their very talented exponents would it wish to be considered as classical music . I think that accolade may well go to Elgar , R V.W., Stravinsky , Schoenberg, Berg, Shostakovich, Britten , Berg, Sibelius etc etc . I think Harrison Birtwhistle and Peter M-D may well be considered footnotes - though significant ones. The more challenging question is about the 21st century and its outstanding figures . Who are they ?

[Serial_Apologist]

I don’t think Broadway musicals , jazz or film music will be considered the “greatest contribution to classical music in the 20th century” - I’m not even sure that most of those genres are classical music or whether their very talented exponents would it wish to be considered as classical music . I think that accolade may well go to Elgar , R V.W., Stravinsky , Schoenberg, Berg, Shostakovich, Britten , Berg, Sibelius etc etc . I think Harrison Birtwhistle and Peter M-D may well be considered footnotes - though significant ones. The more challenging question is about the 21st century and its outstanding figures . Who are they ?

Well there are critics who consider the 10 symphonies of P M-D as the greatest since Shostakovitch's 9. I would include him as well as Birtwistle in the top rank of C20 composers - for me they are better composers than Britten, who has nevertheless to be considered important in British music terms, as are Elgar and VW, and as Sibelius is in Finnish music. Two composers who should unquestionably be among your etceteras are Bartok and Messiaen; Bartok was, I think, the great summariser of early C20 movements and trends, having without necessarily this aim in mind - absorbing in turn all the main innovations and made them his own: Late Romanticism, Impressionism, atonality, folk musics and Neo-Classicism. He might not have been as influential as Schoenberg - for one thing his own music, especially the string quartets, could not have been without Schoenberg's innovations in harmonic language and form. For comprehensiveness, generosity of spirit and breadth of vision, Bartok arguably cannot be equalled by any other twentieth century figure in composition, making him especially rewarding for listeners, but equally for many jazz musicians who continue to draw on his ideas about harmony, modes and ways of expanding popular idioms.